Clinton in 2008 Opposed Early Call of Primary, Told Media ‘Nomination Will Be Up to Superdelegates’

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/clinton-in-2008-opposed-e_b_10245288.html

In 2008, in a move that surprised Democratic superdelegates as well as many in the media, Hillary Clinton issued a stern warning via letter to both the media and elected Democratic officials clarifying that “at this point, we do not yet have a nominee.”

Even more surprising, Clinton’s letter to the most powerful members of her party and the entirety of American media noted that even “when the last votes are cast in early June,” neither she nor her primary opponent would “have secured the nomination. It will be up to automatic delegates...to help choose our party’s nominee.”

Citing the then-recent election results in West Virginia and Kentucky — elections whose results in 2016 would make the same case today Clinton was making in 2008 — the Secretary observed, seemingly with some surprise, that “even when voters are repeatedly told this race is over, they’re not giving up...” She noted that those two recent votes only underscored that Americans “want a President who shares their core beliefs about our country and its future and ‘get’ what they go through every day to care for their families, pay the bills and try to put something away for the future.” The letter implicitly acknowledged that it wasn’t yet clear to many of the Party’s 700-plus superdelegates whether the candidate answering to this description was her or her opponent.

We’re in the same situation today.

Clinton isn’t receiving Democratic superdelegate support because of her popular votes or pledged delegates — the superdelegates have made that clear — nor because she’s a strong candidate, nor because her political views, inasmuch as anyone can discern them, are particularly representative of the views of the Party’s base.

As we know from the fact that nearly 400 of Clinton’s 500-plus superdelegates issued their non-binding endorsements of her in 2015 — before the Democratic field was even set — what guides the candidate’s popularity among Party officials is that she is a Clinton and that it is her turn. That, and she raises obscene amounts of the money for the Party machine.